re: Mickey Mouse copyright expires after 95 years.

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Exactly. There’s no princesses without those copyrights expiring. The ability to take old stories and characters and make something new for today’s audience is kind of important. Imagine if Shakespeare’s family had control over all of his works still and decided never to let anyone share them. Or if every fairytale was locked away. This needed to eventually happen.

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Now imagine if we applied this logic to other things people created and/or owned themselves... I imagine it wouldn't go over well.

Also, there are princesses without those copyrights expiring. Disney doesn't own any copyright to all mice, just that specific name, image and likeness. So princesses always could be made, regardless of copyrights.

If Shakespeare created his works and willed them to his family, why should his family NOT have control over whether they're shared or not?

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The people who created the Steamboat Willy cartoon are dead. Nobody at the company named "Disney" had any involvement in the creation of Steamboat Willy.

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"the people" you reference are quite literally irrelevant. The company owns the copyright, not "the people"

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Why should Americans have to pay anyone for the use of this historical cartoon? Who alive actually deserves payment for the creation of Steamboat Willy?

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The company that owns it?

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If we should have to pay descendants of cartoon creators to watch or adapt cartoons from a century ago, you probably think reparations for slavery is a good idea too.

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Descendants, lime "the people" who don't own these copyrights?

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Probably 30 years too late, but I’m sure RATT would love to bring this back now that Disney can’t sue them.

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30 yrs? Ratt? This pic goes back to the '60s

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If Shakespeare created his works and willed them to his family, why should his family NOT have control over whether they're shared or not

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well, when you consider he stole every plot he ever used...

Reading is hard for most of you clowns. Its limited to only the non speaking rat looking version.

Not exactly. It’s just the likeness from this early series episode. Not the entire Mickey Mouse catalog.

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The COMPANY that OWNS it

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No one owns it now. That’s the point.

In the entire history of copyright law, there has never been such a thing as perpetual copyright. Specifically in this country, the first copyright protections were offered for 14 years. This was later expanded to 28 years with the option of one 28 year renewal.

Disney has, twice now, managed to lobby to have the law changed to add extensions of 20 years, for a total of 40 years.

Now, here we are, 95 years later, and the copyright on that image is finally going to end. It never should have gone on that long, and it’s a good thing that it’s over. I have a hard time fathoming any rational person with an understanding of the history of copyright law finding this to be a bad thing.

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"the people" you reference are quite literally irrelevant. The company owns the copyright, not "the people"

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It's completely relevant... Do you understand the point of copyright law?

The U.S. Constitution says

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To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

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This is what Congress has the power to legislate.

Our society wanted more science and arts, so our society agreed that we would help those who create works make money from their works through exclusivity protection, after which, in turn, the work would be public domain to benefit society. Originally this period of time was only 14 years and we have extended it over and over and over.

Nobody who works at The Walt Disney Company is an Author of Steamboat Willy.
Nobody who works at The Walt Disney Company invented anything related to Steamboat Willy.
It is not promoting the Progress of Science or the Arts for Disney to own Steamboat Willy in perpetuity, nor is it a limited Time.

The U.S. Constitution was never intended to authorize Congress to pass a law empowering agents of the state paid with tax dollars to hunt down enjoyers of vintage mouse cartoons until the end of time.

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This might be the dumbest thing I've read on here. What a stretch.

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Oh?

A guy draws a cartoon in 1928, dies in 1966, and in 2023 someone else entirely different wants money for the cartoon

A white guy enslaves a black guy in 1860, dies in the first half of the 20th century, and in 2023 someone else entirely different wants money for the treatment

Both seem pretty absurd to me...

Before you go start printing T-Shirts and other black and white Mickey Mouse paraphernalia, Disney still retains a trademark on the Mickey Character. I am pretty sure that if you tried to mass produce or sell anything Mickey related they would sick their overpriced attorneys on you.


Also, this is just one or two films in the Disney library. But here is a question for the OT Copyright attorneys out there.

Since this covers just the Steamboat Willy years that were produced for film and theatrical releases, obviously those films have since been digitized, remastered, and rereleased for the home market or theatrical use, would a new copyright apply if one used these digital copies instead of getting your hands on the original negatives and duplicating those.


The closest analog I could see would be the Bible. It has been rewritten and reprinted hundreds of times throughout the years and each version seems to have a rolling new copyright date when it gets updated. The reason I know this is that when I was flipping through a book by a local author, she quoted some passages from the Bible. There was a notation of which Bible she used and acquired permission to use on the copyright page in the front of the book.